Speaker to focus on changing demographics, 2024 election

“Changing Demographics and the 2024 Election: The Politics of Race and Ethnicity” will be the topic for a Technology & Society Colloquia Series presentation on Oct. 25 at Pennsylvania College of Technology.

The presenter for the program is Luis Ricardo Fraga, who is the Rev. Donald P. McNeill, C.S.C., Professor of Transformative Latino Leadership; the Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science; the director of the Institute for Latino Studies; and Fellow at the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame.

Fraga will be joined for the discussion by Craig A. Miller, professor of history/political science and department head for social sciences and humanities at Penn College, as they explore America’s evolving cultural makeup and the role that diversity will play in the 2024 presidential election. They will also field questions from attendees.

The program, which is free and open to the public, will be offered at 7 p.m. in the Presentation Room at the Davie Jane Gilmour Center on main campus. The presentation is part of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Lecture Series and is sponsored by the Notre Dame Club of Greater Williamsport.

Fraga’s primary interests are in American politics. He specializes in Latino politics, voting rights, immigration and education. He has published six books and more than 40 articles in scholarly journals and edited volumes. His most recent co-edited book is “Latinos and the 2016 Election: Latino Resistance and the Election of Donald Trump,” (Michigan State University Press 2020). He has two other recent books: the co-authored “Latinos in the New Millennium: An Almanac of Opinion, Behavior, and Policy Preferences,” (Cambridge University Press 2012), and “Latino Lives in America: Making It Home,” (Temple University Press 2010).

In 2011, President Barack Obama appointed Fraga to the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, for which he also served as co-chair of the Postsecondary Education Subcommittee. Also in 2011, Hispanic Business named him one of the “Top 100 Influentials” in the U.S.

Since returning to Notre Dame in 2014, Fraga has raised more than $8 million for the Institute for Latino Studies. He established the Latino Studies Scholars Program, the only merit-based, academic scholarship program in the country for students who have worked to empower and serve Latino communities during their high school years. He also initiated bringing to Notre Dame the Warrior-Scholar Project, a national program to provide an academic boot camp to military veterans to help build their confidence to pursue postsecondary education.

Fraga holds a doctorate and master’s degree from Rice University; he earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.

Miller, a faculty member at Penn College since 2011, teaches world history, constitutional history, Native American history and international relations courses. He serves as chief reader for the World History: Modern Advanced Placement exam. He holds a doctorate in American Indian history, history of the Atlantic world, and constitutional and legal history from the University of Buffalo, where he also earned a master’s degree in colonial history. He earned his bachelor’s degree in history from SUNY Geneseo.

For more about Penn College, a national leader in applied technology education, email the Admissions Office or call toll-free 800-367-9222.